Zuma's Nkandla home issue gets most media coverage

Johannesburg, May 6 (IANS) A new survey of various election issues in South Africa before its May 7 general election has found President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla home upgrade as being the most widely focused upon in media platforms by the three parties in the fray, media reported Tuesday.

According to a DDI survey, job creation, education and service delivery were some of the secondary issues the three parties focused on in media coverage.

In the past 24 hours, the African National Congress's (ANC) coverage of Nkandla in the local media amounted to 24.4 percent, while the Economic Freedom Fighters' focus on the homestead amounted to 22 percent, SAPA reported citing media survey group DDI.

The opposition Democratic Alliance (DA) focused more on job creation (20.91 percent), but the party's stance on Nkandla still received 20.6 percent of its focus.

The survey comes a day after Zuma said that one of the reasons why the security at Nkandla had to be upgraded was because criminals had once raped one of his wives.

The data was compiled from social media platforms, which included blogs, forums, social networks and commentary.

It also included data from global online newspapers, South African print publications and radio and television stations.

Earlier Monday, President Jacob Zuma broke his silence to justify his stance on Nkandla at an editors' breakfast in Johannesburg.

Zuma's home upgrade in Nkandla town had snowballed into an alleged scandal after public prosecutor Thuli Madonsela in March found in her report that Zuma and his family "unduly benefited" from the excessive R245 million ($23 million) security upgrade of Nkandla.

Zuma defended the upgrades to his home and said the accusations against him were unfair given the importance of protecting any head of state.

"People don't think the Nkandla issue is a problem to affect the ANC voters. People who thought using Nkandla (for campaigning for votes will work) but it never worked," Zuma said.

"It's not an issue; it's a homestead of a man called Zuma who became president," added Zuma.

Zuma, while referring to incidents that took place when he was a provincial minister from 1994 to 1999, explained that one of his wives was raped and his house burgled and burnt.

"My homestead was burned twice during violence and secondly my wife, criminals came, raped my wife," The Star quoted him as saying.

He said that there was nothing abnormal in his raising his security to the level of a president once he became president

This will be South Africa's fifth election since the end of apartheid in 1994 with ANC at the helm all throughout.

The ANC as the persistent fighter against apartheid, holds sway in eight out of nine provinces of the country and is poised to be returned to power in spite of the fact that its popularity is on the wane with the declining image of President Jacob Zuma.